If you had told me those things when I was 16, I would have laughed in your face. To me this is how I saw it:
God didn't love me. God didn't want me. God saw me unworthy. Was there even a God? if so where had he been my entire life? Why did he let all this bad stuff happen to me? Why didn't he protect me? If I am a child of God, how could he allow such monsterous things to happen to me, his child. But, then again my own parents abused me day in and day out, so maybe thats how children were supposed to be treated, even a child of God....
Fast forward a year later, at seventeen. I was done. Life was too hard. Nothing ever worked out. No family. No friends. No reason to keep on. No one was going to miss me. The life I had lived was not a life worthy of celebrating. The abuse, the loneliness, the depression, the brokenness had finally won me over. I was ready to end my life. I TRIED to end my life. Laying on the ground in the bathroom, crying, pleading, absolutely beyond devastated, ready to end the suffering, the pain, the hurt, I heard a voice. I knew it was not my voice, nor was it a voice I had ever heard before. I heard it, quiet and booming all at the same time. I heard it and the voice said to me "my child, I have never abandoned you nor failed you." Instantly I knew it was him. This God everyone talked about. I knew it, and all of a sudden my life played in my head, all the times I should have been dead, all the times I was hurt, lonely, scared, sad. There was something different though when I replayed those times. I wasn't alone. I saw god's arms around me. He heald me through all the abuse. He cried for my pain as much as I cried for my pain. He was there. Through all of it. He did protect me. He never left me. He protected his child, the best he could. That day changed my life forever.
Now I'm not going to tell you that something magical happened that day. Yes my life changed, but It would be years before I truly surrendered to God.
I had been in and out of church seemingly my entire life. Through every foster home. I heard the word, but I never really believed the word. My entire childhood and early adult years were spent in survival mode. I didn't have time I guess to believe in something so good, when all I saw were things so bad.
Backstory: At the age of 21 I found my biological father. After not seeing or hearing from him for a very long time. My entire being wanted to forgive him for all his wrong doings. But my heart just couldn't. It was too shattered. There had been too much damage done. But, I wanted a relationship with him, I wanted to see if things had truly changed. I wanted to feel the love a father is supposed to have for his daughter. I needed the relationship. Craved the relationship. So I let by gones be by gones and opened myself up to the possibility that this could work. My father and I eventually ended up getting an apartment together with his girlfriend. and my two brothers coming in and out. Things seemed great. BUT there was one problem. My father was still using drugs, and selling drugs. Things hadn't changed as much as he would have liked me to believe. A few years of back and forth with him and his drug addicting ways, I had to make a change. I found myself feeling the same kind of things I felt as a kid. I needed to run. Fast. Far. I needed to get out of there if I ever wanted a chance at a normal life. BUT, here was the problem. Everything I had was wrapped up in that house. My money, my car. I lost a really good job because I couldn't get to work. I started working with my dad's girlfriend Dawn at a Thrift Store owned by the church she attended sometimes. No car, because I lost it too. Walking to work. Barely making ends meet. Sometimes there was no food in the house. How could I be going backwards in life? I dealt with this as a kid. Things were supposed to have been different. But they weren't. It finally came to a point where I needed to leave. So I did. Where was I going? I had no clue because I had no where to go. But I had to leave, and so I did. I slept at the Thrift Store for a few nights. By this time I had slowly started going to the church that owned the thrift store. My sister and one-year-old nephew would come with me sometimes. I met a lot of great people there. Well, because I was in this certain situation and had nowhere to go, one of the members of the church offered to let me stay in their motor home in the back driveway of the church for a few months until I could figure out what to do. That is how this story of redemtion begins.
I started going to Chester Avenue Community Church when I was 22 years old. I slowly started opening up to the people around me. It was weird at first, everyone was so nice and caring. Why? I hadn't ever experienced that kind of acceptance. Especially at a church. I'd been to many churches in my life. Most of them were full of judgemental people with their noses stuck up in the air. But something kept pulling me back to CACC. I eventually started meeting with the Pastors, seeking help and guidance. Something had to give. If Jesus was the answer then I wanted to find it. I wanted to find the answer and I wanted to keep it. I was a hot-mess-express. Life had done a number on me. I felt damaged and broken. Unworthy of help, but still seeking it. Something in me wouldn't give up. One sunday, I made the decision after talking exstensively with both Pastors to go up to the front of the alter and do something that I should have done a long time ago. Not for my parents. but for me. It was time to forgive my biological parents for what they had done. For my own sake, my own heart, and my own walk with God. As I knelt there, the worship team was quietly playing a song, and I just started talking to God, and opening my heart to him. Exposing the deepest parts of me. The hurt, the sorrow, the betrayal, laying it all down at his feet. I started crying, like gut wrenching sobbing. I can't really put in to words the feeling that overcame me. I would imagine that those few seconds after were what true peace and surrender felt like. I knew my heart and my mind were on the road to recovery.
More to come in Part 2
Becka
"For I know the plans I have for you Declares the Lord, Plans to prosper you, not harm you plans to give you hope and a future."
Jeremiah 29:11
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